Speaker 1: Hey, it's Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Carol
Speaker 1: Markowitz Show on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show. This
Speaker 2: is not going to be a political show. It was
Speaker 2: important to me that this show be on bigger topics
Speaker 2: and not just news of the day. But the news
Speaker 2: right now is extremely personal to me, and so I
Speaker 2: have to say something about it. On Saturday morning, Israel
Speaker 2: was attacked. I'm sure you've seen the horrifying videos and stories.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go over any of that. I've
Speaker 2: barely slept since Saturday. The images, they really stay on
Speaker 2: my mind. We're just getting to know each other on
Speaker 2: this podcast, so I wanted to tell you a little
Speaker 2: bit more about myself. I mentioned last episode that I
Speaker 2: was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish, and that's
Speaker 2: actually how my family was able to get out. I
Speaker 2: won't go into the whole history, but I do enjoy
Speaker 2: noting that my family owes their freedom to President Gerald Ford.
Speaker 2: He negotiated for Jews to be let out of the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union because we were being persecuted for our religion.
Speaker 2: We couldn't hold various jobs, live in certain places, and
Speaker 2: so on. I feel like people sometimes don't understand that
Speaker 2: Judaism is a religion, yes, but we are also a people.
Speaker 2: That's why I can take a DNA test and find
Speaker 2: out that I'm Jewish, but you can't similarly take a
Speaker 2: DNA test for other faiths and find out that you're
Speaker 2: Catholic or Muslim or something. So in the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: we were Jews as our nationality. That's what it said
Speaker 2: on our papers. It wasn't like you could convert out
Speaker 2: of it. Some of you might know Jews from the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union who live in America and refer to themselves
Speaker 2: as Russian, maybe not recently, but then you come to
Speaker 2: find out they were born in Ukraine or Belarus or elsewhere.
Speaker 2: But that's because we were never Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian.
Speaker 2: We were just Jews. My family moved to Brooklyn, New
Speaker 2: York when I was a small child, and despite the
Speaker 2: fact that my parents were both atheists, because again Soviet
Speaker 2: I went to an Orthodox Jewish school for the first
Speaker 2: eight years of my life. I mentioned that because I
Speaker 2: want to give you some insight into what little Jewish
Speaker 2: kids learn in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: All day.
Speaker 2: We learned about peace. Our songs were about making peace,
Speaker 2: we read books about peace, We prayed for peace. I've
Speaker 2: been lucky in some ways because my ex Soviet world,
Speaker 2: and my politically conservative world, and my Florida world are
Speaker 2: all overwhelmingly pro Israel. So I never fear in speaking
Speaker 2: out that I'm going to lose friends or something. And
Speaker 2: while I noticed the silence of some people I follow,
Speaker 2: I really don't have any one in my life arguing
Speaker 2: that murdering babies or kidnapping grandma's is just to be expected.
Speaker 2: And honestly, I know some Jews are angry about it,
Speaker 2: but I somewhat understand the people who are not speaking out.
Speaker 2: If you're not Jewish and you want to stay out
Speaker 2: of it, I get it. You can feel disgusted by
Speaker 2: the images of dead bodies at a music festival but
Speaker 2: not take to Facebook to let your friends know how
Speaker 2: you feel. It's understandable. But I am Jewish and I
Speaker 2: can't stay out of it. I can't be quiet. Those
Speaker 2: dead people are me. I see my children's faces in
Speaker 2: the faces of the kids that were taken. I won't
Speaker 2: pretend otherwise. I can't. Of course, if you comment on
Speaker 2: every single other catastrophe around the world, and are suddenly
Speaker 2: silent on this. Yes, we notice, and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people like that, big time activists for every cause,
Speaker 2: who care a lot about everything except dead Jews. We notice.
Speaker 2: One of the things that is hard about this current
Speaker 2: moment is that people hear your support for Israel or
Speaker 2: just general opposition to rape and slaughter, and immediately imagine
Speaker 2: you're pushing a policy position. I'm sure there are people
Speaker 2: who want the US to get involved in Israel's fight.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of them. I think Israel can handle
Speaker 2: her own business and will understand that you're being lied to.
Speaker 2: If you hear the Jews in general or Israelis in particular,
Speaker 2: are asking for American involvement, it's simply untrue. We're afraid
Speaker 2: right now. I always saw America as a safe haven
Speaker 2: for Jews, and I always referred to American Jews like
Speaker 2: myself as the luckiest Jews in history. But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to lie. It's been a tough few years. There
Speaker 2: was a moment where there were attacks on Jews every day,
Speaker 2: and so many people rush to excuse them. It was
Speaker 2: happening in Brooklyn daily and even other Jews shrugged. I
Speaker 2: remember Kanye West said Hitler was right, and way too
Speaker 2: many people invited him on their shows to hear more
Speaker 2: about that. It hasn't felt great. If you have Jews
Speaker 2: in your life, understand that they are really going through
Speaker 2: something right now. None of us are functioning well. All
Speaker 2: of us are afraid. Good people have asked what they
Speaker 2: can do and how they can help. There are Israeli
Speaker 2: charities you can support. I've listed some on my Twitter.
Speaker 2: You can check in with your Jewish friends, especially if
Speaker 2: they have family in Israel, which many of us do.
Speaker 2: Another thing is, if you go shooting, offer to take
Speaker 2: your Jewish friend. Silly as that may sound, many of
Speaker 2: us didn't grow up in a shooting culture, and many
Speaker 2: of us are very interested in protecting ourselves but don't
Speaker 2: know exactly how. Listen. I want my kids to sing
Speaker 2: those songs of peace, and i want them to work
Speaker 2: for peace, but I'm also going to teach them how
Speaker 2: to shoot as soon as they are old enough. And
Speaker 2: I'm never going to cower to people who hate us
Speaker 2: for an identity we couldn't shed if we wanted to.
Speaker 2: So that's it. This is a podcast about life and
Speaker 2: this is what's going on in my life right now.
Speaker 2: Coming up next is an interview I did with Clay Travis,
Speaker 2: recorded before the war in Israel began. Join us after
Speaker 2: the break. My guest today is my friend Clay Travis,
Speaker 2: co host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Speaker 2: and author of the best selling book American Playbook.
Speaker 3: Hi Clay, how are you, Carol?
Speaker 1: I appreciate you having me on. Yes, I've got my
Speaker 1: own copy. I hope you're enjoying it. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a fun read, and so I hope you're enjoying it.
Speaker 1: I hope anybody else who's reading it I am.
Speaker 2: I haven't reached the part where you are insulting the
Speaker 2: Dallas Cowboys yet.
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, like, hey, can I write an entertaining
Speaker 1: book for people who might not otherwise be interested in
Speaker 1: a politics book?
Speaker 3: And I like to think that I am done, So
Speaker 3: we'll see whether or not that continues to be a case.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm loving it, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: let's just get right into it. But you know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned in your book that you are a history nerd,
Speaker 2: and you know this is something that I did know
Speaker 2: about you already. I have two sons, and you know,
Speaker 2: one is a sports kid, you know, a superstar in
Speaker 2: football and nic name every player on every team, and
Speaker 2: the other one is super into history. I've really never
Speaker 2: seen anybody kind of merge those two interests. Do you
Speaker 2: feel like you're unique in that way?
Speaker 3: Maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always been obsessed with sports and also
Speaker 1: obsessed with history my whole wife. When I was six
Speaker 1: years old, I don't think this is in the book,
Speaker 1: but what I wanted to do for my sixth birthday
Speaker 1: was go to the Alamo.
Speaker 3: So my dad took me to the Alamo.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to every Civil War battlefield growing
Speaker 1: up and read everything about the Civil War. Also, and
Speaker 1: when you're kid, I think you think whatever you do
Speaker 1: is normal, and then you get to be an adult
Speaker 1: and you raise your own kids, and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: knowing everything about the Alamo when you're six years old
Speaker 1: is not like a normal thing, right, And also simultaneously
Speaker 1: knowing everything about let's say SEC football and Major League
Speaker 1: baseball when you're six.
Speaker 3: But uh, I don't know where that all came from.
Speaker 1: I was always a massive reader, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say maybe the reading thing was abnormal, but
Speaker 1: being obsessed with sports meant that I couldn't be any
Speaker 1: body on the planet who liked sports, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I had always that that dichotomy where you could
Speaker 1: have like sort of a super nerdy interest. As I know,
Speaker 1: I say this in the book because my wife still
Speaker 1: refuses to believe that she married somebody who went to
Speaker 1: Civil warst sleep away Camp.
Speaker 3: And had kids with them, and.
Speaker 1: Camp scholarship kid to Civil Wars sleep Away Camp is
Speaker 1: a different universe, right, But I do think that that
Speaker 1: that whole aspect to me kind of always felt intertwined,
Speaker 1: and I see it in my kids. My oldest, in particular,
Speaker 1: as a monster sports fan, was also great at debate,
Speaker 1: and whereas I was super interested in the Civil War
Speaker 1: when he was young, he was very, very interested in
Speaker 1: World War Two and he would read everything about World
Speaker 1: War Two, and so I saw that. I don't know
Speaker 1: where that comes from, but I saw that a little
Speaker 1: bit in him, and I said, Okay, this kind of
Speaker 1: is in some way or reflection I think of me.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you have the biggest radio show in the country.
Speaker 2: Did you always want to be in radio?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't look I growing up listened to sports talker
Speaker 1: radio as a young kid. And so when my dad
Speaker 1: would pick me up at school or whatever what we did,
Speaker 1: and we were driving home, and it's funny, I had
Speaker 1: my he just turned nine, but I had my eight
Speaker 1: year old in the car recently, and I was listening
Speaker 1: to sports s talk radio and he just reminds me a lot.
Speaker 3: Of me as well.
Speaker 1: But he said, Dad, can you believe there's a radio
Speaker 1: station where all they do is talk about sports, Like
Speaker 1: that's the best thing ever. And you know, like he'll
Speaker 1: just sit there and listen to it, and he knows
Speaker 1: all the players, and they got the fantasy football teams
Speaker 1: and everything else.
Speaker 3: So I was.
Speaker 1: Interested in radio, Like as a kid, I called into
Speaker 1: local sports talk radio to talk about whatever at the top.
Speaker 1: I mean I would sit on wait, on hold for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes an hour or whatever and be super nervous.
Speaker 1: So I was interested and aware of sports talk radio.
Speaker 1: But you know that I went to college and then
Speaker 1: I went to law school, and so I thought that
Speaker 1: I would do something with the law degree. And I
Speaker 1: had what I would call a quarter life crisis where
Speaker 1: I was in my law firm and I was twenty
Speaker 1: five years old, and I just almost had like this
Speaker 1: panic attack come over me because I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this could be the next forty years of
Speaker 1: my life. So I thought writing that I would My
Speaker 1: goal was to make a living as a writer, and
Speaker 1: in my mind, I knew writing and radio and TV.
Speaker 1: I still think of myself as a writer, even though
Speaker 1: it's a small part of what I do on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis now.
Speaker 3: But that was my love. So I would have said.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've been talking to me when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, and if you said, Clay, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do when you grow up, if you had
Speaker 1: told me that I could make a living as a writer,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, that's the greatest job in the history
Speaker 1: of the world. And I went and got a law degree,
Speaker 1: but I also got an MFA and thought that I
Speaker 1: would like to teach creative writing, that I would like
Speaker 1: to teach creative writing as the way in which that
Speaker 1: I would make a living. And I taught creative writing
Speaker 1: at Vanderbilt, and I still think that I'm minored in
Speaker 1: creative writing in college. I still think that's probably one
Speaker 1: of the best jobs out there to live on a
Speaker 1: college campus and just get to teach kids writing, creative
Speaker 1: writing in particular. But I probably would have said at fifteen,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do if I could make
Speaker 1: a living as a writer.
Speaker 3: Either.
Speaker 1: I would have probably said fiction at that point in time,
Speaker 1: because I'd always been a huge reader. But that's probably
Speaker 1: what I would have thought I would do. I never
Speaker 1: really thought radio or television or anything like that was
Speaker 1: likely to be a career path.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you've made it.
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: No? But yes in some ways. Let me explain what
Speaker 3: I mean by that.
Speaker 1: About a decade ago, I was at a minor league
Speaker 1: baseball game, Triple A, which is one level below the
Speaker 1: major leagues, and I remember feeling like I was a
Speaker 1: Triple A media talent. I felt like I could be
Speaker 1: a major league player, but I was doing local sports
Speaker 1: talk radio in Nashville.
Speaker 3: I was running my.
Speaker 1: Own website at the time, out Kick, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: a major Yeah, I wasn't a major league player yet,
Speaker 1: but I felt like I had the talent to be
Speaker 1: in the major leagues. I feel like I'm in the
Speaker 1: major leagues, and that's great because I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about paying my mortgage or whether my kids can
Speaker 1: afford to go to college. Like those things are great,
Speaker 1: but I still feel like I'm not at the top
Speaker 1: level performance that I can be. So I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe I'm in major leagues and I still can prove
Speaker 1: that I'm an all star and so so I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm fortunate to be in the major leagues, but
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I've reached, you know, the apex
Speaker 1: ability of what I could could accomplish.
Speaker 2: What's it like living a public life, Like do you
Speaker 2: get recognized everywhere you go? And like what you know,
Speaker 2: any any hate.
Speaker 1: Or it's mostly positive where I live now. Remember I
Speaker 1: live in Nashville, and I think that's probably different than
Speaker 1: if I lived in New York or LA.
Speaker 3: Maybe the reactions would be would be different.
Speaker 1: But I think about it more in the context of
Speaker 1: my kids, because they're getting old enough now they recognize
Speaker 1: that Dad doesn't have a normal job, and like, I
Speaker 1: had a conversation with them the other day where I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you're getting old enough where you may hear
Speaker 1: people say things about what I do or what I say,
Speaker 1: And I said, that's great. You know, I'm fortunate to
Speaker 1: get to be able to say exactly what I think,
Speaker 1: But I said, all I ever want you guys to
Speaker 1: do is judge me on dad, Like, don't let anybody
Speaker 1: else what they're saying publicly about anything.
Speaker 3: That I do.
Speaker 1: You know me better than anybody who's going to write
Speaker 1: about me. You live in the house with me. If
Speaker 1: I'm doing a good job as dad, which is my goal,
Speaker 1: then judge me on that. Everybody has jobs. The job
Speaker 1: you can be good at.
Speaker 3: Or bad at.
Speaker 1: The praise can come or go. You asked about whether
Speaker 1: I feel like I've made it. What I would say,
Speaker 1: and I bet you've seen this too, is media careers
Speaker 1: are very much like roller coasters. Like you're really high
Speaker 1: up and you think, oh man, everything's going great, and
Speaker 1: then somebody like you'll lose something and you go back down,
Speaker 1: and then you climb your way back up. And then
Speaker 1: I've just seen at you know, I've been in media
Speaker 1: for twenty years now, you know, a generation, and I've
Speaker 1: just seen that happen so many times, where you think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really great, and then you get fired and
Speaker 1: then work you know, as hard as again, and then.
Speaker 3: You know it may not be anything that you did.
Speaker 1: You know, like I started out kick because FanHouse shut
Speaker 1: down the site that I was at.
Speaker 3: I loved it. I would have kept doing it for
Speaker 3: the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: So I just think you have to The thing that
Speaker 1: I would say I'm proud of is I think I'm
Speaker 1: a pretty good dad. I'm not as good of a
Speaker 1: dad as my dad was. He was phenomenal, but I
Speaker 1: think I'm a pretty good dad. And I think I'm
Speaker 1: an okay husband. And I've been married almost twenty years,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm pretty good at radio writing and TV.
Speaker 1: And so when you ask, I think it's such a
Speaker 1: good question. Do you feel like you've made it? Here's
Speaker 1: a way that I would think about it. If I
Speaker 1: could go back in time right now, would I change anything?
Speaker 1: My answer is no, because I'm very comfortable with where
Speaker 1: I am today. That doesn't mean I've not made a
Speaker 1: lot of mistakes. It doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly
Speaker 1: flawed and imperfect like every person out there. But I'm
Speaker 1: very comfortable in my own skin and with where I
Speaker 1: am today, and I wouldn't want to change anything, Like
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to not go to law school, or
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to go to a different college, or
Speaker 1: certainly I wouldn't want to, you know, not get married.
Speaker 1: I got married at twenty five years old. Like, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't change anything. I would the only thing I would
Speaker 1: want to have had more kids.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I don't think I'm going to have
Speaker 3: any more. I think we got three.
Speaker 1: I feel happy that we have three healthy and happy
Speaker 1: kids right now. But you know, other than like, I
Speaker 1: would like to have five or six kids because I've
Speaker 1: got the ability to take care of them, and I
Speaker 1: think they're so amazing and so unique as I know,
Speaker 1: you know, as a parent.
Speaker 3: But other than that, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: There's not really anything in my life that And I
Speaker 1: fought for us to have three, so I feel like
Speaker 1: I won that battle. My wife, I think, would have
Speaker 1: said stayed at two, but I would have had four
Speaker 1: or five or six if the timing had worked out
Speaker 1: a little bit different.
Speaker 2: It's funny because in the book you say I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm going to have a daughter, and I was like,
Speaker 2: he's thinking about possibly having a fourth. Oh.
Speaker 3: I say to my wife all the time, like you're not, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I don't think. I mean, I mean that's a maybe.
Speaker 3: It's a maybe for me, it's a no for her.
Speaker 1: So so and usually mom wins in these battles because
Speaker 1: having a child for me is a lot less work
Speaker 1: than having a child for her, as I will readily acknowledge.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would. I think it would have been cool to
Speaker 1: have a daughter and see what it's like to raise
Speaker 1: a daughter compared to having, you know, three boys.
Speaker 3: I'm very happy to have three boys.
Speaker 1: Thankful that I don't have three girls, trust me, but
Speaker 1: I would like to have had three boys and maybe
Speaker 1: a girl too.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I was going to ask you how
Speaker 2: long you've been married. You said almost twenty years. Do
Speaker 2: you have any advice for newlyweds.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: I mean your co host is a newlywed.
Speaker 1: Have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We've not talked about this with Buck.
Speaker 1: I mean because Buck's in a unique spot because he
Speaker 1: didn't get married till after he was forty. And you know,
Speaker 1: men get so set in their ways that I think
Speaker 1: it's actually more challenging for men if they stay single
Speaker 1: for that long to get married than it is depending
Speaker 1: on how old your husband is. I think women are
Speaker 1: way more mature than men. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is like a lot of the whole marital process,
Speaker 1: Like I never really just thought about it that much.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like, you know, for instance, the age
Speaker 1: at which you should have kids. My wife just said
Speaker 1: she's two years older than me. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to start trying to have kids now. And like,
Speaker 1: as a man, I think because you have the luxury
Speaker 1: of like, you could have a kid at sixty, right,
Speaker 1: Probably not advisable, but you could. Like so that the
Speaker 1: clocks are different for women than men, and so I
Speaker 1: would say women probably need, in my.
Speaker 3: Opinion, to.
Speaker 1: Be more linient with men, particularly early in marriage, because
Speaker 1: they're not what you want them to be.
Speaker 3: What I have come to find out is, yeah, most men.
Speaker 1: When they get married, in my experience, would love for
Speaker 1: their wives to stay the exact same forever, right, especially
Speaker 1: if you're getting married young. We would like, we would like,
Speaker 1: we love everything about you. We would like for you
Speaker 1: to be eternally the exact same way you are right now.
Speaker 1: Every woman basically gets married to a guy in my experience,
Speaker 1: with the idea being he's okay, but I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: like you women go into like, hey I'm going to
Speaker 1: rehab this.
Speaker 2: We see potential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys invest in potential. Men invest in the
Speaker 1: reality of now, and so men are very comfortable I
Speaker 1: think oftentimes in the now, and women are very comfortable
Speaker 1: with the He isn't just kind of okay now, but
Speaker 1: in ten years he can be a good dad. I
Speaker 1: think he's gonna have a good future. Like that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying about. You guys see a longer trajectory and
Speaker 1: range than I think a lot of men do.
Speaker 3: And I'll give you an easy example.
Speaker 1: Every man when they get engaged has no idea what
Speaker 1: the next step is. Every woman is like ready to
Speaker 1: figure out every aspect of the marriage within, like in
Speaker 1: terms of the ceremony and everything else where it should happen,
Speaker 1: what the time is, or you know, it gets on
Speaker 1: the phone with her mom and like it's it's like
Speaker 1: the whole apparatus is moving in place. Because you guys
Speaker 1: have all been thinking about it. I can barely even
Speaker 1: you know, like conceive of all the details that were involved.
Speaker 1: So I just think women are way more involved.
Speaker 2: I wasn't one of those women who had thought about
Speaker 2: what her wedding would be like, and that was a
Speaker 2: mistake because you can't figure it out in a short
Speaker 2: period of time. You need those years of planning, like
Speaker 2: which I realized, you know, I realized in retrospect I
Speaker 2: hadn't done. Yeah, so I you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: I think it's the right way to go. That women
Speaker 2: think about it for a long time before and then
Speaker 2: you get to the most expensive event of your life
Speaker 2: and you kind of.
Speaker 3: Know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I would say was I was
Speaker 1: very conscious of what I wanted. I wanted good looking
Speaker 1: and super smart. Those were my two criteria, right, and
Speaker 1: I think I went I hit a home run on that.
Speaker 1: But you got to I think a lot of men
Speaker 1: focus on the good looking and they don't necessarily focus
Speaker 1: on the like idea of hey, you're potentially going to
Speaker 1: be having children with this person, like I want, you know,
Speaker 1: the offspring to also be successful, so you know, and
Speaker 1: also thinking about.
Speaker 3: What was not pretty dumb, Yeah, what kind of mom
Speaker 3: h your potential significant other would be.
Speaker 1: So I would say two men focus less on the
Speaker 1: immediate Oh she's really pretty, I really like her right now,
Speaker 1: and more on okay, ten years, twenty years, what's the trajectory.
Speaker 2: So the potential you want to think about than we do.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, so what do you think are like some
Speaker 2: of our largest societal problems in America, Like, what do
Speaker 2: you worry about for your kids?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So my thing that I hammer home to my boys,
Speaker 1: and I try to say this every time I go
Speaker 1: talk to young audiences is focus on what you can control.
Speaker 3: I'm big on individual.
Speaker 1: Responsibility, but also just the only thing you can really
Speaker 1: control is your work ethic. You can't control how the
Speaker 1: world around you responds to you, but I can control that.
Speaker 1: I work super hard every day. So I say, graduate
Speaker 1: from high school. These are minimum standards, by the way,
Speaker 1: but if every kid could do this, I think the
Speaker 1: country would be far better. Graduate from high school, get
Speaker 1: a job, get married, don't have a kid until you're
Speaker 1: twenty five, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight male female.
Speaker 1: If you do that, your poverty rate is zero, no
Speaker 1: matter how poor your family circumstances were for your upbringing,
Speaker 1: and then you can provide a better opportunity for your kids.
Speaker 3: That would be my pitch.
Speaker 1: My concern, and I write about this a lot in
Speaker 1: the book, is that we have allowed identity politics to
Speaker 1: completely take over our body politic. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is you'll often hear somebody say, hey, as
Speaker 1: a transgender woman. I believe, and I always think like,
Speaker 1: if you put your identity in front of your opinion,
Speaker 1: why should I care your opinions either a valid and
Speaker 1: a good argument or it's not. I don't care about
Speaker 1: the things you didn't control. And I'm concerned that when
Speaker 1: we were growing up, because you're around my age, it
Speaker 1: seemed like what we were taught was most people are
Speaker 1: pretty similar, right, whether despite your background, your common humanity.
Speaker 1: In America, most people are pretty similar. And now I
Speaker 1: think what we're often teaching kids is you're all very dissimilar,
Speaker 1: and that's because of things you didn't choose, as opposed
Speaker 1: to things you did choose, like the idea that that
Speaker 1: your race and your your your gender, to me are
Speaker 1: two of the least interesting things about people.
Speaker 3: The things that you don't the things that you.
Speaker 1: Don't choose are are are far more interesting to me,
Speaker 1: so far less interesting to me than things that you
Speaker 1: do choose. And I think we focus on identity over
Speaker 1: everything else.
Speaker 2: So is that solvable?
Speaker 3: Is that? Yeah? I think it is what.
Speaker 1: I think we have to have a landslide election, and
Speaker 1: we have to have somebody who can speak to and
Speaker 1: I think we're starting to see it right, because the
Speaker 1: argument when Trump won in sixteen was oh, he's super
Speaker 1: racist and Republicans are doomed forever to only have white voters.
Speaker 3: And then what's happened.
Speaker 1: Hispanic, Asian and Black voters have actually become more likely
Speaker 1: to vote Republican in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Than they were before Trump.
Speaker 1: Because I think the fundamental lie that Democrats and I
Speaker 1: should say left this because there's some Democrats who would
Speaker 1: reject this, but the fundamental lie that Democrats tell is
Speaker 1: that America is an awful racist place and that's just
Speaker 1: simply not true.
Speaker 2: That brown people are dying to.
Speaker 1: Literally every day black and brown people die trying to
Speaker 1: get into this country. If this were the most racist
Speaker 1: country out there, their decision to do that would make
Speaker 1: zero syd. So I think that's the fundamental lie that
Speaker 1: Democrats have brought into Then I think it's rooted in
Speaker 1: identity politics because this idea that all white men are evil.
Speaker 1: I used to joke and I still do make this
Speaker 1: joke visually, but like I pick the worst time ever
Speaker 1: to become a rich white guy for basically all of
Speaker 1: American history. If you're a rich white guy like everything
Speaker 1: you were, like you the best person ever, and now
Speaker 1: I suddenly I was poor. My family was poor, you know,
Speaker 1: basically our whole life, and now I'm a rich white
Speaker 1: guy like that? How dare you be a rich white guy?
Speaker 1: You're you've done everything that's wrong with America. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I went to public school. I didn't even grow up
Speaker 1: in a part of Ashville.
Speaker 2: And here with your best tip for my listeners on
Speaker 2: how they can improve their lives. What's what's the advice
Speaker 2: that you think people should follow to make their lives better.
Speaker 1: I think it has to be that you completely own
Speaker 1: your own success or failure, and whatever you find that
Speaker 1: you have a skill in that you enjoy spending time in.
Speaker 1: I said, I had a quarter life crisis. Being a
Speaker 1: lawyer's not an awful job. My grandfather's worked in factories
Speaker 1: their whole lives. There are a lot of bad jobs,
Speaker 1: trust me, I know, and a lot of jobs that
Speaker 1: stink and also don't pay well, which is a double combo.
Speaker 1: But I think if you can find something that you
Speaker 1: don't look at the clock while you do over time,
Speaker 1: you will win.
Speaker 3: If you can find a way to do that.
Speaker 1: I looked at the clock all the time when I
Speaker 1: practice law, I couldn't wait for the day to be
Speaker 1: over so I could leave and no longer be required
Speaker 1: to be practicing laws. I don't look at the clock
Speaker 1: when I sit down and write. I don't really look
Speaker 1: at the clock other than to make sure we hit
Speaker 1: time breaks. When I sit down to do radio, I
Speaker 1: haven't looked at the clock from this entire conversation.
Speaker 3: That you and I are having.
Speaker 1: That's because I enjoy it, and I think you can't
Speaker 1: fake enjoyment because over time, if you like what you do,
Speaker 1: you will be more successful at that than someone who
Speaker 1: does not like what they do.
Speaker 3: So if you can.
Speaker 1: Mirror your your advocation with something that you enjoy spending
Speaker 1: time doing, you're going to be successful in it. I
Speaker 1: also would say this, figure out. If you have a job,
Speaker 1: look and see what your boss's boss does. If you
Speaker 1: don't think that you would like to do what your
Speaker 1: boss's boss does, then you probably shouldn't be in that
Speaker 1: profession because what are you building toward what I think
Speaker 1: you know? Like in the law firm, I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: the name partner, Well, he just gets paid more to
Speaker 1: do basically the same thing that I do now. I
Speaker 1: was in a small law firm, so I could see
Speaker 1: kind of what they did that wasn't for me. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I couldn't have been successful at it, but ultimately
Speaker 1: I would have never succeeded like someone who loved it.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason I've had success in media
Speaker 1: is because I genuinely love what I get to do.
Speaker 1: And the final way, by the way Carol, would be
Speaker 1: when I sold out Kicked two years ago. I feel
Speaker 1: like I kind of won the lottery, and I think
Speaker 1: everybody sits around and thinks, oh, what would I do
Speaker 1: if I won the lottery? How would I spend my life?
Speaker 1: Like everybody has had that fantasy and everybody's played through it.
Speaker 1: That's the entire basis of why the lottery works as
Speaker 1: a business, right, It's that fantasy fulfillment. To me, the
Speaker 1: ultimate answer is I would wake up and.
Speaker 3: Keep doing what I'm already doing.
Speaker 1: If you answered that, then you are living a life
Speaker 1: that you can be. I think successful and proud and
Speaker 1: happy in And I felt like I had that experience
Speaker 1: where I woke up, Okay, I won the lottery. I've
Speaker 1: got money, I've got the ability to do lots of things.
Speaker 1: What do I want to do? Oh wait, I want
Speaker 1: to keep doing exactly what I'm already doing. I think
Speaker 1: that's why I ended up winning the lottery, because I
Speaker 1: had already worked myself into a place where I was
Speaker 1: so happy doing what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really love that answer. That's
Speaker 2: some really great advice. I think our listeners should definitely
Speaker 2: listen to that. Thank you Clay for coming on. Loved
Speaker 2: having you, and please come back any time.
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, you are killing it. I love
Speaker 1: reading your columns. You are super talented.
Speaker 3: At your show.
Speaker 1: You probably shouldn't expect to get praised all the times
Speaker 1: by the guests, but I am really impressed with how talented.
Speaker 3: You are the work that you are doing.
Speaker 1: The only negative thing I can say is that your
Speaker 1: poor Cowboy fan son is going to be miserable for
Speaker 1: most of his life because he's a Cowboys fan.
Speaker 2: I really hope we play the Titans sometimes.
Speaker 3: Well. Titans fans are definitely my courage.
Speaker 2: Thanks Clay, Thanks so much Clay Travis for joining the
Speaker 2: Carol Markowitz Show. We'll see you again on Mondays and Thursdays.
Speaker 2: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.